


A Cup of Tea

by illumynare



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 16:20:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17145062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illumynare/pseuds/illumynare
Summary: Nobody is more surprised than Suraya Hawthorne when she wins Cayde's Dare and becomes the next Hunter Vanguard. (Nobody is more displeased than her, either.)





	A Cup of Tea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JenCforCarolina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenCforCarolina/gifts).



> Secret Santa fic for Jen. Merry Christmas, and thanks for the prompt! <3 Thanks also to Nem for the last-minute beta.

When Suraya slams her empty bowl down and grins at the gobsmacked faces of the fives Hunters sitting at the table with her—none of them finished with their ramen and two of them with noodles dangling out of their mouths—all she can think is that it's obviously high time somebody showed them that Guardians aren't always the best at everything.

"What?" she says. "You never lost a bet to a mere mortal before?"

One of the Hunter, a pale blue Awoken woman, slurps up her mouthful of noodles and swallows it down. "That . . . that wasn't just a bet," she says faintly. "That was the Vanguard Dare."

When they explain to her what that is, Suraya doesn't believe them. Oh, she believes that Cayde would absolutely make his dare something that ridiculous, but she can't believe it actually _matters._ That can't possibly be the way they pick the next Hunter Vanguard. It's just another stupid Guardian game that doesn't actually mean anything, like the dance-offs in the Tower courtyard.

For three days, she refuses to believe it. But when Ikora Rey comes to Suraya and _apologizes_ to her—

It's hard to disbelieve a Warlock who's actually being humble.

That doesn't mean she has to accept it.

"I'm not a Guardian," she says. "You can't make me a Vanguard just because of some stupid dare."

"You saved hundreds from the Red Legion," says Ikora. "You were their Guardian when we couldn't be." She pauses, exhaustion dragging at her shoulders, grief at her face. "And right now . . . our Guardians need a symbol, Hawthorne. The Vanguard Dare is a tradition as old as Hunters. They need that continuity. They need _you."_

Suraya thinks of the freedom she had out in the EDZ. She wishes she'd never left. But if wishes were sparrows, Guardians wouldn't be the only ones who could ride, and the Red Legion never would have come.

"All right," she says. "But I won't wear a cape."

#

When the Guardian she found half-dead at the bottom of a cliff abandoned them, Suraya thought that was the end of the Farm's alliance with the Guardians. An end she should have seen coming, too. Since when had Guardians cared about normal humans as people and not pets? Since when had they been able to protect those people in more than name only?

Never. And never.

So she didn't expect the Guardian to come back. She worked with Devrim, with almost two dozen scouts, trying to make the Farm safe for as many people as possible. To find as many survivors of the City as possible.

But then the Guardian came back. 

The next thing she knew, the whole Vanguard was camped out at the Farm.

It wasn't so bad as she might have expected. Ikora was cryptic as hell and pretentious too, but she was endearingly practical when it comes to coordinating the Farm's defenses. Zavala said everything like he was giving a speech to a legion about to die, but he was also willing to discuss tea with Devrim for hours, so Suraya figured she owes him one. And Cayde—

Well, Suraya had a pretty poor opinion of him at first, when he was shuffling off patrols onto the shoulders a Guardian who had more than earned a Traveller-damned rest. But the thing was, that Guardian did better at those patrols than Cayde or likely anyone else would have. 

That was one of Cayde's knacks, Suraya grew to understand as she stood in the Tower and helped organize clans. He talked a big game about wanting to be out in the field and do everything himself—she was pretty sure that he _did_ want to leave the Tower—but he knew how to pick the right people for the job. Even though she never came to like him—he made _far_ too many comments about her poncho for that—she did end up respecting him.

Which makes his Vanguard Dare even more of a betrayal.`

Because how is it fair, how does it keep _anyone_ safe, to hand his position to whoever wins a ramen-eating contest at Cayde's favorite restaurant?

When Suraya walks into the Tower for the first time as Hunter Vanguard, she briefly, fiercely hates all of the Guardians and their heedless immortality that makes them act this way.

But after she's supervised her first few strikes and patrols, lost her first few Guardians—

The only one she hates is Cayde.

#

It's twilight in the Tower. Suraya leaves her post and goes to the rooms that the Vanguard has given her. (She is the Vanguard now.)

In some ways, being Hunter Vanguard is not so different from being on the Farm. She's still trying to keep people organized and safe. She's still wishing she were on her own again, free in the EDZ. And the whole universe is still trying to kill all of humanity.

But today was long and hard and she lost a strike team, and tonight Hawthorne is more than willing to blame the Guardians. To blame _Cayde._

She still remembers the recording her left for her: _So, here's your next Hunter lesson: looking after your own._

Anger burns at her every time she thinks of it. As if Suraya didn't already know that lesson. As if Cayde had any idea of it, dying in the Prison of Elders because he wanted to play hero, then leaving the position of Hunter Vanguard open to anyone who passed a nonsensical test.

Suraya is so busy thinking how much she hates him, that at first she doesn't notice how the light in her room has turned a strange, chilly green.

When she does, for just one heartbeat she has time to be frightened—

Then green sparks swirl and subside, and before her stands Eris Morn.

Suraya has never met her before, but she's heard enough stories from other Guardians to recognize her easily: the armor wrought from Hive exoskeletons. The three glowing eyes behind a blindfold. The viscous black tears trailing down her cheeks.

The Guardians she'd talked to seemed about evenly divided as to whether Eris Morn was good news or bad, but Cayde had famously disliked her, which Suraya felt was a point in her favor.

Doesn't mean she's thrilled to see Eris appear in her quarters.

"Don't you Guardians know how to knock?" she asks, crossing her arms.

Eris materialized facing about thirty degrees to the left. At the sound of Suraya's voice, her head swings around, those creepy, gauze0covered glowing eyes boring into her.

"You are not Cayde-6," says Eris.

And it's been a long day. A long week. An extremely long two months since Cayde died and stuck Suraya with mopping up his messes and trying to protect all his pretentious, idiot Hunters, including the ones who don't want to listen to her because she's not a Guardian.

"No," she says, "I'm not. Cayde got himself killed playing hero in the Prison of Elders, so I'm filling in. The name's Hawthorne, and before you ask, no, I'm not a Guardian."

"Neither am I," says Eris after a moment, her voice solemn. "You are the Hunter Vanguard now?'

Suraya snorts bitterly. "Turns out the title is pretty cheap. I won it in a ramen-eating contest. No offense, but Cayde didn't have the sense that the Traveler gave little green apples."

"He did not," Eris agrees, and a weird relaxation runs through Suraya at hearing somebody dismiss him so easily. Somebody who is not mourning him, as Ikora is, as the Hunters and the entire mote-stealing Tower are.

There's somebody else in the world who doesn't love Cayde. It's comforting enough to make her forgive him, just a little.

"Why are you here?" asks Suraya.

Eris draws out a clay tablet, carved with strange symbols. "I came," she says with a stiff, rehearsed weariness, "to share these runes used by servants of Savathûn. They are used to mark sites dedicated to the siphoning of Light. No Guardian who is not prepared to destroyed the favored servants of Savathûn should approach them."

Suraya takes the tablet from Eris's hands. She stares at the symbols scratched into the terra-cotta surface, trying to memorize their shapes. The fireteam she lost today was killed by the Hive. She heard their staticky, dying screams over the comms, and the screeches of the Wizards who were draining them of Light for the glory of Savathûn. 

The more she works with the Vanguard—the more she _is_ the Vanguard—the more she hears the name "Savathûn," and the more she hates it as she once hated "Ghaul."

"Okay," she says. "Thanks."

There's a short, awkward silence.

"I am not a Guardian," says Eris, repeating what they both already know. "You do not doubt me?"

Suraya snorts. "Pot, kettle. At least you _were_ a Guardian once. You got any idea how much I have to yell at my Hunters to make them take orders from a mere mortal? Had to revoke Tower dancing privileges for two of them last week."

She'd hated it, hated that she was turning into one of those authority figures she'd raged against all her life. But she couldn't protect Guardians who wouldn't listen to her in the field. And it had worked: both of them had shaped up right away. 

Then they had both died with the rest of their fireteam on Titan.

"Besides," she says, "I've heard what you did for us with Crota and Oryx. I'll trust anyone who helps keep my Hunters alive."

_My Hunters._ It's the second time she's said the phrase in five minutes, and a shiver runs her back as she realizes that she really means it in a way she hasn't before. 

Looks like this Vanguard gig is actually getting to her.

Eris tilts her head. "You are . . . refreshing," she says. "I am glad the Hunters are in good hands."

She pronounces the words with an almost pretentious gravity that Suraya associates more with Warlocks than Hunters. But Suraya doesn't take offense. It's kinda nice to be told she's doing a good job. Nicer still when it comes from somebody who doesn't care if she's living up to Cayde.

She expects Eris to vanish. But instead, Crota's Bane remains standing in Suraya's living room, glowing green eyes unblinking.

As the silence stretches into awkward, Suraya thinks of how Eris said the word _refreshing,_ and it occurs to her that maybe Eris doesn't want to leave. Maybe it's refreshing for her to be around another Guardian who is not a Guardian.

Suraya's not much good at social niceties, but Devrim taught her a few things besides how to fire a sniper rifle.

"Hey," she says, "I know you've probably got . . . ex-Guardian stuff to do . . . but how'd you like a cup of tea first?"

A faint smile appears on Eris's lips, and she nods in the suggestion of a bow. "I would be honored, Hunter Vanguard."

**Author's Note:**

> (The conditions of Cayde's Dare were actually "whoever wins the ramen-eating contest AND Ikora approves of," but it's at least ten years before Hawthorne finds out about that second part.)


End file.
